The Shot

This was taken on the Playa Grande beach Puerto del Carmen, Lanzarote at close to high tide. There were also some good waves coming in and I used my recently acquired ND 8 filter which reduces light by 3 stops to get a soft feel to the waves. The HDR exposures were 1/5 sec, 1.6 sec and 6 seconds.

I was on a slightly higher bit of the beach providing a safe location as the waves came in.

The picture was taken on a Tripod with a Sony A700 with a Sigma 10-20 wide angle zoom at 10 mm. 3 raw images 2EV spacing. Opened in Photoshop first and each image noise reduced with Noiseware Pro and saved as tiffs.

Photomatix

Outputted in Photomatix to detail enhancer. Click the Camera name top right for Exif details and the settings used.

Photoshop

Detail brought back in with Topaz adjust with HDR pop with adjustments

General adjustments in levels and curves to enhance.

Vibrance layer increase 25 points

The sunset colours were enhanced in the tonemapping and Topaz and slightly taken back by reducing saturation in yellows and blues with a layer mask to keep the colour in the water.

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening

First duplicate layer Noiseware Pro and a little sharpening

Second duplicate layer with mask to apply extra sharpening and contrast with low amount and high radius using Unsharp mask (Clarity Effect) The settings were 53 amount and 53 radius.

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Tags:   ocean light sunset sun color colour beach water waves clouds reflections landscape Spain Lanzarote sand rocks wide angle hdr evening light Puerto del Carmen

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The Shot

This was taken Saturday evening which was a particularly clear night in Lanzarote. I went to a location on the southern coast near El Golfo where there is very little light pollution. The main light on the horizon is from the small village of El Golfo a short way to the north. Brightening the Star Trails did the same for the light and the clouds but I liked the effect so left it that way.

I used my Android Smartphone with Google Sky Map App to locate the North Star, Polaris and point the Camera in that direction.

I started at about 9.10 with exposures of 30 seconds for 30 minutes so 60 exposures. There was very little flare from passing cars as the nearby road was closed for repairs further on. The location is on a beach with a large tidal pool in the foreground.

The foreground scene is partially lit partly by the light from El Golfo and partly from the setting crescent moon

Note there is no Exif info for this shot as the Startrails stacking software removes it.
- Sony A700.
- ISO 800, f5.6, 30 seconds, 10mm.
- Sigma 10-20 lens.
- Tripod.
- Wireless Shutter Release
For more detail on shooting Star Trails see my recent image at www.flickr.com/photos/edwinjones/6719044531/
Photoshop

For the Star Trails the stacking software works on jpegs which are then saved as a Tiff.

After opening in Photoshop general adjustments in levels and curves to increase lightness and contrast and bring up more star trails.

Vibrance increased 66 points

Brightness increased 125 points excluding the foreground with a mask

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening .

First duplicate layer Noiseware Pro and a little sharpening.

Another duplicate layes was brought up to first apply Topaz DeNoise at a very strong level. Then another layer for Topaz Adjust Vibrance presets, Detail strong 2 with some adjustments to further bring out the Star Trails.

I had aimed to get some reflections of the star trails in the pool but it didn’t come out too well so I made a Photoshop adjustment. Selected the top part of the image with the rectangular marquee too, copied paste, duplicate as a layer, edit, transform and flip. Then dragged to bottom of image. Set layer opacity at 20% for a more realistic reflection and used a layer mask to apply the reflected trails only to the pool.

Resources

For Licensing and more pictures see Edwin Jones Photography

Tags:   longexposure night landscape surreal star trails sky stars star exposure north pole the plough astronomy streaks starry polaris north star

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The Shot

Category - General Enthusiast

This is my first shot to be processed from this year’s London Open House on 21st and 22 September. City Hall is on the south bank of the Thames near Tower Bridge and was my first visit.

The amazing spiral staircase inside is the centerpiece of this building. I had been to it in 2011 but wanted to try out my fisheye lens on it. I was surprised that the queues were quite light. I arrived an hour before opening but very few people were there and when I came out there was no queue. Last year there was apparently a long wait.

The light was pretty rubbish all weekend with dull overcast skies but for photos of the inside of buildings this was an advantage as it meant less contrast.

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A700 with a Samyang Fisheye lens at 8 mm. 3 raw images 2EV spacing.

This picture was enhanced with HDR processing and Photoshop to bring in more detail. The original image had little colour with the grey sky so I decided to convert to mono for a better look.

Full details of the processing together with before and after images are on my Blog see Edwin Jones Photography Blog

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Tags:   county city uk england house abstract london tower art geometric lines thames architecture modern river lens spiral open angle city hall interior curves wide shapes symmetry south bank staircase gb boris curve city of london city hall london people urban black and white bw perspective line fisheye Norman foster open house southwark offices spiral staircase gla office Sony pic dslr hdr “high dynamic range” photomatix topaz tonemapped dslra700 tonemapping futuristic samyang 2013

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The Shot

This is the DLR, Docklands Light Railway, platform at Bank Underground Station, London. The station is named after the Bank of England above ground but could not be more different. There is an especially clean, vibrant and futuristic look to the platform.

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A700 with a Samyang fisheye lens at 8mm and f5.6. I took 3 pictures for HDR.

Processing was done in Photomatix using Detail Enhancer. This was followed by Topaz and adjustment layers in Photoshop. A motion blur tool was used in Topaz to add movement to the train. The image was cropped a little for better composition.

Full details of the processing together with before and after images are on my Blog see Edwin Jones Photography Blog
For Galleries, Prints and Licences see Edwin Jones Photography

I just published my first Kindle Ebook at Amazon on Composition, see
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or alternatively see
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Tags:   city uk england urban london art station architecture train underground subway photography metro pov tube London underground hdr colour color red reflections lines perspective vanishing point platform bank bank station capital shine metallic futuristic geometry topaz wide angle fisheye lens sony samyang photoshop a700 sony alpha building blur blur effect movement speed docklands light railway dlr

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The Shot
This was taken from the side of the Caldera Colorada volcano, near Masdache, Lanzarote. There is a 45 minute walk round the base of the cone. One side is an unusual rich red, made up from cinder, rich in iron oxide.

There is a story associated with this image. I had finished one hour 44 minutes of 2 minute Star Trail exposures. I put the lens cap on and did a 2 minute dark exposure for noise reduction. Then I tripped and fell against the Tripod, grabbed it to try and save the camera but over it went with me on top of it. The amazing thing is there was not a scratch on Camera or lens and both work perfectly. I was also holding a smartphone using the torch app and that was undamaged. I had only a few minor cuts. You might say I had an argument with a Tripod and the Tripod won. I think the day was saved by the Camera falling on loose gravel rather than the many hard rocks around.

I had with me an HTC Android Smart Phone with the Google Sky App. This enabled me to locate the pole star while there was still light. The foreground comprises an HDR image taken while there was still light. With the Camera and Tripod locked in position the star trail images were taken later when the stars were out.

I used my Interval Timer and set the camera at ISO 200 and bulb and the timer at 2 minutes at f3.5. The lens was a Samyang 8mm fish eye. I set the timer to take images for 1 hour 44 minutes. I use software to stack the star trail images. There are a number of free programs available though I use www.startrails.de/html/software.html

In the end there was too much light in the first 10 minutes of exposures. I used 47 images or 1 hour and 34 minutes worth. There was still enough light to get a little blue in the sky which I wanted.

Note that here is distortion in the image due to the fisheye lens pointing up which curves the landscape up from the sides. This was exaggerated with the processing where I used the clone tool to add to the curve on the right to remove light from a town and also on the left to remove an over bright area in the sunset direction.

I took a dark frame. This has to be taken at the same time and place. The reason is that with long exposures the sensor will produce hot pixel noise which will be the same for the star trail images if taken for the same length of time and crucially at about the same temperature. The stacking software can then automatically subtract that noise from the final blended image.
I was on site for 3 and a half hours altogether for this picture. Not really a problem. I brought a picnic supper, read an eBook on my smartphone and looked at the beautiful night sky.

For further information on taking Star Trail images see the my Blog Entry for the earlier Star Trails image edwinjonesphotography.com/blog/2013/1/crater-floor-star-t...
Full details of the processing of this image together with before and after images are on my Blog see Edwin Jones Photography Blog
For Galleries, Prints and Licences see Edwin Jones Photography

Tags:   sky nature night landscape star trails trail path celestial star trails polaris north star long exposure volcanoe volcano volcanic crater crater cone rocks wide angle fisheye sonya700 photography Lanzarote the plough astronomy geology spain blue red purple galaxy milky way Dark darkness night sky universe space picture samyang fisheye lens pic dslr hdr high dynamic range photomatix topaz tonemapped tonemapping Photoshop dslra700 Caldera Colorada Masdache astrophotography mars planet science fiction

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